"Hey slackass, code the attached image for the news!"

I'd seen this line come across my e-mail over 100 times. I've showed Bandit how to post an image to this website several times before, but he's an old dog, and new tricks just don't come easy. Now I know why he Shanghaied me into joining this band of anti-social wingnuts and being his web monkey for this twisted project. At 2 a.m. one day last May, Bandit broke into the house and put a .45 in my back. He hauled my ass to the back bedroom where I keep the PC and chained me to the desk with just enough slack to move about the house a bit.

"Fuck this!", I'd had enough. I called Bikernet HQ where Bandit was commin' off a hard nights drinkin' and a serious beating from Sin Wu after she found out he'd taken off to Mexico with a $10 hooker and a bottle of Jose 'C' the week before.

"I'm outta here you slave driver! The Oyster Run's this weekend and I plan on suckin' down a few raw ones."

"You leave that damned desk and I'm sendin' Zebra up there to field dress you and use your carcas for fish bait!" he groaned.

"Come and get me!" and the phone slammed.

I called the wife, had her grab a chop saw from the garage, and broke myself free. It was time to ride....

Destination, Oyster Run. It's the largest motorcycling event up here in the Great Northwest. Bikers from all over Washington, British Columbia, Idaho and Oregon make this trip every year to rattle the locals outta bed. It's held on the Sunday of the last weekend of September every year as an informal event in the town of Anacortes. Anacortes is the gateway to the San Juan Islands here in Washington and the scenery on the way out to the event is some of the most beautiful you'll ever see. This is the biggest run of the season, and everyone's last chance to terrorize a small community before packin' it in for a long winter.

We basically have two seasonal weather patterns here in the Northwest. August and the rainy season. However, if you're lucky, you can get a decent day in September. We got lucky this year. The weekend was shaping up nicely. I was planning on rounding up a few buddies to make the trip but a series of disasters took them all out. Tom the Terrorist was in particularly bad shape. He'd been attacked by a rental van being driven by an Israeli national a couple months back, and was still in the hospital with a number of injuries. He was out of the game, and so was his new Deuce that had less than 1,000 miles on it. Jackhammer John, Maggie the Mauler (one of the meanest damned women I've ever met), and various other riding partners were out for one reason or another, I can't remember why anymore.

So I called the old man. Figured we'd make this one a family event. 'El Gordo,' as his buddies call him, had gotten his young son (me) into riding over 20 years ago, and he and I still ride today.

"Grab the old lady and let's go!"

"See you in the morning" he said.

The next day, Ma and Pa showed up with his Sporty. After a couple cups of coffee, I rolled my sled out of the garage to warm it up for the ride.

I'd built the bike over the course of two years. Took that long just to scrape up all the parts to make it run. The plate reads "PORKER" and I like to think of her as an XL Softail Extraordinaire. This photo doesn't do her justice. She's got candied ghost flames that just glow in the sun. I'd originally planned to have her done just in time for the ride to the Badlands, but Kelly (my wife) was diagnosed with cancer back in June and there was no way I was leaving her behind while she endured six weeks of chemo and radiation. She's doing fine now, except she tires easily from the after effects of the treatments. There's always 2001.

Time to ride. We mounted up and were off like a prom dress.

My aunt and uncle own a nice place on Fidalgo Bay, just a quick hop from our final destination. They had offered to lodge and feed us for the night. My uncle is one hell of a fisherman and provided us with some of the best damned grub I've ever had.

We pulled in late that afternoon. The ride from our place in the mountains off I-90 was only about three hours. We had no major casualties, just a broken seat pin that I fixed by slapping a key ring though the pin to hold it in place.

The evening was basically a catch-up session for all of us. I hadn't seen my aunt and uncle since last year when we went to the same event. He cooked up a salmon and a bowl of fresh crab for dinner, and we drunk ourselves into oblivion for the night.

The next morning was nothing short of beautiful. There’s nothing like waking up to an eastern exposure at sunrise. We had another huge feeding to soak up the remnants of the booze, rolled the bikes out of the garage and roared 'em up.

We got into town, which was just a short hop away from the bay, to roll to the end of Commercial Avenue. It was pretty busy on the strip even at 10 a.m. The vendors were ready for action and about a quarter-mile of the street was thick with smoke and iron.

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